I was watching 3 way debate on the
Newshour over the report; including AFL-CIO guy, Grover Norquist, and a woman who is the President of Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget . I guess it is telling that even the Newshour which generally has thoughtful discussion Norquist, and the AFL-CIO both ended up reading from their talking points. I am not even convinced that AFL guy had actually read the report yet.
AFL guy: don't cut Social Security eliminate the Bush tax cuts.
Norquist: Our problem isn't a revenue problem it is a spending problem.
Together: This plan is a non starter.
At one point Grover talks about how if we could increase growth by 1% it would generate an additional 2.5 trillion in revenue over 10 years. The AFL Guys said well astonishingly I actually completely agree with Grover, we need growth. Of course, I disagree with him how to get there.
This is precisely the problem IMO. On one side we have Tea Party types saying if we just cut spending and cut taxes everything will get better and on the other side, the Krugmans say if we just increase spending on infrastructure and give money to those in real need and pay for it by taxing rich people everything will get better. Everyone agrees on the goal higher growth, no one agrees on the approach, and so we end up with lower taxes, more spending and a huge deficit.
Just once, I'd like one of the extremist to acknowledge that actually they don't know crap. I know 1+1 = 2 and I'm 99.9999999999999999% sure that sun will rise tomorrow. But the impact of Keynesian economic stimulus on the US economy or which side of the Laffer curve we are on, or impact of cutting corporate taxes on job creation, all of the stuff is pretty much a scientific wild ass guess, best case.